The Creative Activist

How many students, including adult learners, need some extra help to communicate effectively in writing? Across the United States, this number reaches into the millions. a picture is worth ... is a unique book produced through collaboration between I-LEAD Charter School in Reading, PA and Threshold Collaborative, a teaching, consulting and capacity building organization. Reading has one of the worst performing school systems in the nation. Students wrote and recorded personal essays in a project that combined writing with modern technologies to teach the vital skills of literacy, critical thinking and communication. The 16 students who contributed essays used their skills in essays on school, family life and personal struggles. The book includes links to audio recordings of the essays and QR codes that allow access to the audio files on mobile devices via QR reading apps. a picture is worth … came out of a partnership between two organizations. Threshold Collabo...

The recent CVS announcement that the chain would stop selling tobacco products, prompted some thoughts on how best to reduce tobacco use. Public education and advocacy are sometimes put to good use, at least it seems that way. I wonder if some lateral thinking, or just some systematic investigation of the topic can lead to some better programs? The CVS decision may spark the desire to lobby other firms, to get them to stop carrying tobacco products too. This approach might appeal to activists, but has some challenges: 1. Access to decision makers 2. Shareholder concerns over profits 3. Lack of an alternative source of revenue, that makes sense for that business 4. C-level executives' natural conservatism about changing business strategy So, maybe working on corporate executives is not the best possible tactic. Maybe reducing the number of places that sell tobacco, through pressure is not the best strategy at all. What other strategies and tactics might be available? Othe...

This is just a quick sort of public-service announcement dedicated to some books activists, working in nonprofits or not, might want to read. These titles are not always easy to follow, but contain powerful lessons for activists. Do you want to know how to raise more money, set up a new program, or start a social marketing campaign? Well, first of all you need two things: (1) A clear goal, (2) some relevant technical knowledge or training, such as training in the basics of social marketing. Assuming those two things are in place, reading one of these books, and applying the lessons therein, will give better results. DeBono's Thinking Course (Edward DeBono) - A summary of many tools and techniques for thinking about problems, evaluating information, and generating new ideas. The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox (Richard Fobes) - A detailed methodology for defining (yes, you need to do that) and solving problems, with notes on how to evaluate ideas for potential effectiv...

The Clinton Global Intiative theme for this year is "Designing for Impact" Designs must take account of needs and contraints (infrastructure, money, human resources, et cetera). Don't forget to consider cultural norms, demographics, technology, education levels, laws, and regulations. Designs need to match the social environment as well as being fit for a given natural environment. Technologies obiously need to be designed. Design thinking should be applied to systems or processes too. Just introducing water purification devices or new software can cause new problems. The rest of the system doesn't really fit what you've done. Do people have the training or experience they need to really use that new software? Feeding hungry people and preserving historic buildings are process that might be designed to work more effectively. Stanford Social Innovation Review describes the principles and give ss few examples of good and bad design thinking. For example, a wat...

Random thoughts on starting and funding new programs or projects. A poster to a LinkedIn forum described a plan to re-forest a mountain in AZ. He was asking for advice on how to finance a nursery to grow the trees that would go on the mountain later. I asked a few questions that I want to repeat here, in generic form: Do you have a registered nonprofit organization? Do you have a track record of success with fund raising and/or programs? If you can answer 'yes" to both questions, then grant money might be available. That's one funding option. If you are really new, your fundraising options are a bit more limited. There might not be any point in pursuing grant money, or using snail mail to ask for money, or using the Web to raise some money. You have to network first, and raise money from locals. The old-fashioned tactics for raising money are still available to you. Be original though. Everyone holds car washes and sells candy. What else can you sell, or do for ...

Last time I promised to write more about creative fundraising, among other applications of creative thinking. There are many obvious ways to raise money. So, what place is there for creative thinking about fundraising? Your staff and volunteers are probably busy enough as it is. The urge to stick with traditional fundraising methods is probably strong for just that reason. Traditional steps like applying for grants and courting businesses and writing fundraising letters work fairly well most of the time. So, here is an way to escape the normal fundraising pattern, without too much fuss. Take a few minutes to think about your specific fundraising goals. Be specific and be as comprehensive as you can be in just a few minutes. Now take a few minutes to note which fundraising goals really need money and which could be handled by assembling volunteers or getting donations of goods and services. Repeat for the other goals. As you look over each fundraising goal and think of ways...

You need a new idea for an education program. mentoring, recycling, prevention of bullying, and so forth. You can find an existing program and duplicate it, or maybe duplicate a variation of the idea. That's what usually happens and it usually works pretty well. This post is for times when no suitable programs exist. When you don't have anything you can copy, whether because of local laws, lack of resources or what have you, then it is time to get creative. How does that work? I'm glad you asked. In many previous posts I've covered lots of ways to generate new ideas, some creative and some more logical. Let's continue in that vein and look at how various brainstorming tools can work in creating new programs. First, the "creative" approach to brainstorming. Refer to Serious Creativity by Edward De Bono to read more about provocation and movement. For now, just keep these things in mind: Movement is about getting away from established ways of thinking. ...

Program Design Are there better ways to start or improve nonprofit programs? This blog is about building better nonprofits, so you probably hope I'll have more answers than questions. I do. I've written about many brainstorming techniques that you might be able to employ generically for dealing with any nonprofit challenge. This post summarizes some of those ideas and explains how to apply them to program design. A simple desire to challenge ideas, assumptions, and requirements would be a good place to start. What are the assumptions and usual requirements for a certain type of program? Write them down and examine each one to see if it is valid. Verify that each requirement is really a requirement now, and not a bad assumption or an outmoded idea. Spend about 10 minutes on this exercise.. Break down program design into component parts and look at each of the components. using either stratals or the filament technique. The filament technique calls for writing down the us...

This post is really about program design questions, again. Whether you are designing a new program or trying to improve an existing program certain questions need to be asked. There may a be a few types of questions that you haven't really considered; efficiency, effectiveness, and impact are the topics of the day then. Think about the best possible use of your resources. The program that will have the biggest impact matters, of course. How do you get the most benefit from a certain investment? You are thinking of your programs and projects as investments aren't you? Effectiveness and efficiency are worth asking questions about. This is even more true in a cash-strapped nonprofit than in a large business with vast financial resources. Thinking about efficiency and effectiveness as criteria for designing or improving a program will only make your organization more effective. For example, I want to start a program that educates people about how and why to recycle, and how ...

How do you know if your program idea is a good one? Admittedly, experience and some data collection (interviews in particular) could be all it takes to answer those questions. This post is for the times when experience and a bit of research won't do the job. Consider the case of a part-time social activist, we'll call him Chet, who wants to start a nonprofit to educate people about how new renewable energy technologies can help them save money. The right questions can lead to better ideas, or a new approach to a challenge, or a newer challenge that might be more important, or at least more tractable. After all, your first thoughts about the challenge (or problem) might not reflect the best way to address whatever problem you've been inspired to tackle.  There is the "5 Why" technique for example. You start by asking why you want to address a specific challenge: How do I get people in my city to adapt innovative renewable energy technologies (never mind which...

This is a post about asking good questions whenever you think you have a good idea for a program or program improvement. You probably knew that great ideas still need to be examined, questioned if you please. That's what this post is about, sort of. Mostly, I want to offer a few comments on Brainsteering: A Better Approach to Breakthrough Ideas by Kevin and Shawn Coyne. Brainsteering offers a disciplined approach to asking, and answering, questions about product ideas and business ideas. The process also works just fine for program ideas. The book starts by describing some generic questions to ask about a challenge then goes into creating logic trees. A logic tree works by stating a question and breaking it down into subquestions. Simply asking and answering questions might lead to some valuable new ideas. Brainsteering And that's as far as I have gone in the book. I can say that there is a chapter on making your own brainstorming efforts more effective. Other chapter...

The core of most nonprofit work is the program of some sort. Conservation, education, and emergency assistance seem to be the most popular program goals. When a program exists there may be room for improvement. Heck, there is almost certainly room for some improvement. If you have an idea for a nonprofit you will want to develop your core program, or refine your program idea. You already know how to brainstorm ideas, or research them. The next twenty or so posts will help you do a better job of finding program ideas. I'll help by describing a bunch of brainstorming tools you can use. The tools I cover here will be the same ones you may have read about in my long and rambling posts on better fundraising. If you are tuning in late, that's fine. The techniques I want to show you are simple to learn and will come with actual program design examples. I'll get into a few techniques that did not come up in the fundraising section. When I was skimming through Michael Michalk...

This post is about another creative thinking tool, this time applied to designing programs for nonprofits. I want to walk you through a few ways that NGOs can design or improve programs with a bit of applied creativity. Edward De Bono (yes, him again) developed the use of “provocations” or “provocative operations” to help people break away from normal patterns of thinking. De Bono also invented the word “po” to introduce provocations. I’ll use po here as if it were a word people use every day so bear with me a moment. De Bono created several types of provocations, the “stepping stone” being the one I want to focus on today. A stepping stone provocation helps us move from our current thinking to a radically different way of thinking, by way of an interim step. The interim step is a provocation is a forced switch to a different way of thinking. The end point is, we hope, a creative new way of doing whatever the program does. The first stepping stone provocation is called a reversal b...